Naima B. Robert – Advice for Muslim Women Who Want to Write Tell Your Story Change the World!
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That is part of the Black Muslim Festival.
And I wanted to share this with all
of you guys because
many of you know
that I have been writing books for,
almost 20 years now,
And I wanted to share with you
a few of the things that I have
learned along the way. Okay. So before we
get started, my name is Naima b Robert.
I am an award winning author, alhamdulillah,
also an editor and a writing coach, and
I help, you know, people
to tell their stories and to get their
books written. So as part of this festival,
I wanted to have a conversation
about
changing the world.
Okay? Now changing the world is like a
is a really huge concept. It's a it's
a really big idea.
Many of us don't really believe that we
have the ability to change the world. Okay?
So in this presentation,
in this conversation,
I'm going to be sharing with you my
ideas
about changing the world through telling your story
and writing your book. Okay? So before we
get started,
could you let me know please
if any of you have either written a
book or thought of writing a book? Let
me know in the comments. Let me know
in the chat. Is that something that's ever
occurred to you? And this could be, it
could be a children's book, it could be
an adult's book, it could be, you know
fiction, it could be non fiction. Either way,
I just wanna know if you've ever had
the idea of writing a book. So I've
got some some people in the chat here
saying that they've thought of writing a book.
What about you guys? Have you ever
considered that you could potentially write a book?
We've got more people who have thought about
it,
Now
you would be surprised that how many people
have thought of writing a book. Okay?
You know, in our culture, obviously, you know,
there is this idea that, you know, writing
a book is one of those things on
the bucket list. Right? That it's one of
those things that you want to have done
before you die.
Sis Munira says that she's written many stories,
but have never fully gone through to publish
anything, and that's really common too.
Yeah. That's really common as well. So what
I'd like to do in this session is
is 2 things.
1, I want to talk about
who should be writing a book right now.
And I know it sounds a bit heavy
handed, but I really mean it because I
take this very seriously, and I'm going to
tell you why. I'm gonna talk about who
should be writing a book and then the
steps that you need to take in order
to be able to write that book. Okay?
So the first thing that I wanna
say is
I have a belief,
very, very strong belief
that
every single one of us has
a story to tell or a message to
share
that is unique
to us
and that someone out there needs to hear.
I'm gonna repeat that because it's one of
my my foundational principles. Right? And that is
that every single one of us has
either a story to tell or a message
to share
and there are there is someone out there.
There are people out there
who need to hear
your story or need to hear your message.
That's my foundational principle. Now if you don't
believe that,
none of this may resonate with you. Okay?
And if you know that there are people
out there who need to kind of hear
what I'm saying, Those of you on here,
then share this with others. Share it now,
share the live so other people can hear
this too because this is the stuff that
no one tells you. Okay? This is the
deal.
If it is true that every single one
of us has a story to tell or
a message to share that someone out there
in the world needs to hear,
then that means that we need
to do a few things
that will allow us to truly
tell our story and share our message. Right?
So
what that means is this.
The first thing that we have to do,
every single one of us,
is to own our story.
Right?
Owning your story
means that you accept
and acknowledge
that this is what I have to offer
and that what I have to offer has
value.
Okay?
First thing is that I have something of
value
to offer
and, yeah, what I have to offer is
is important
and it has value and,
that's part of owning your story. Yep.
That's the first way it has to begin.
Alright? If you don't believe that,
you're you're it's not gonna happen. Okay? If
you think,
anyone could do it, like, I don't have
anything special to say,
you know, I don't really have anything unique
to bring, like, you know, so many people
could say the same thing, so many people
could tell the same story,
then you're just not going to make it.
Right? Give me a yes in the chat
if that makes sense to you. Give me
a yes in the chat
if you can see how
owning your story
is literally the first step on the journey
to telling that story. Okay? It's like when
you have people going to do a TED
talk. The only people who will do a
TED talk are the ones who believe that
they have something important to say. But the
thing is,
every single one of us could do a
TED talk.
Every single one of us could do a
TED talk. Right? Of course, there are TED
talks that are done by, you know,
experts and scientists and all that kind of
thing. No problem. But many TED talks
are simply
ordinary people
recognizing
that they are extraordinary
in their uniqueness.
I'm gonna say that again because I like
that.
Most people many people doing a TED talk
are ordinary people
that have recognized
that they are extraordinary
in their uniqueness
because this is something that we know.
Every single one of us is unique.
Every single one of us was created
unique and special in our own way with
our own gifts, our own talents, our own
journey, our own story, which means that you
no one can replicate what you have to
bring. That's the truth. No one can replicate
it.
So owning your story is the first move.
Right? The next move after that is giving
yourself permission to tell the story. Listen. A
lot of us out here are
waiting for someone
to give us permission,
waiting for somebody to say, oh, write for
us. Come and tell us a story. You
know, let me give you a publishing deal.
Waiting for validation.
That's what we're doing. We're waiting for validation.
We're waiting for someone to come and tell
us.
Yes. Yes. We we we want this story.
Yes. We think that it's important. Listen, guys,
Especially especially
if you come from a background like me.
I'm a Muslim. I'm a black woman. I'm
an African woman.
You know, I I'm a stay at home.
I'm a work from home mom. Whatever the
case may be. I'm not necessarily the person
that people are gonna be chasing down to
tell their story. How many of you have
ever felt that? Give me a yes in
the chat or in the comments.
If you have felt that, you know, I'm
not I'm not the type, I'm not the
person that is going to have an agent
and publishers are gonna be, you know, chasing
me for my story, you know, maybe there
isn't a space for me.
Maybe there isn't space for me. Maybe there
isn't a seat at the table for me.
If you've been following us at the Black
Muslim Festival, then you know how we feel
about the table. Right? Someone tell me how
we feel about the table.
We don't talk about the table and getting
a seat at the table. We talk about
building our own tables.
Right? We bring the table. We build the
table. We make our own table. Okay? Which
means that we have to be able to
acknowledge
that we already have everything we need, and
we're not waiting for an invitation from anyone.
We're not waiting for permission from anyone.
We don't need anyone else's validation.
I want you to take that very seriously.
We are not here
waiting for someone to give us permission.
We give ourselves permission. Please repeat that in
the chat. I give myself permission.
Put it in the comments. Put it in
the chat because I wanna hear you say
it. I've got lots of my fantastic people
here saying, we bring the table. Yes. We
do.
I get Hadija says, I give myself permission.
Who else is gonna give themselves permission today?
Fadila says, I give myself permission. Who else
is gonna say they give themselves?
Says, I give myself permission. Rashida says, I
give myself permission. Yes. Yes. Yes. That is
where it begins.
Owning your story,
giving yourself permission. Ayesha says, I give myself
permission. Yes.
That's where it begins.
That's when you unlock it. And the thing
is, the reality is
we have everything we need at our disposal.
Now is the time.
There has never been a better time. Mahreen
says I give myself permission. There has never
been a better time
to be you.
To be you,
I'm gonna say that again. There has never
been a better time to be you, a
person with a story to tell, with a
message to share. There has never been a
better time because those gatekeepers,
they don't have the power that they once
had.
Are you guys with me?
They don't have the power that they once
had.
We can build our own tables now.
When it comes to writing, we can put
our work out there wherever we want.
We can share it however we want. We
can publish our own books. We don't have
to wait for a publisher to give us
permission. We don't have to wait for a
publisher, or an agent, or anyone to validate
us. We have the power now. And if
you know that someone needs to hear this,
you better share this live, okay, right away
and invite them. Okay? So
here's the deal. What did I say?
Owning your story
and giving yourself permission
and then
taking action. Okay? Taking action.
So we're not out here just to talk
about, yeah, it's great. It's a wonderful pipe
dream. No.
I wanna see results, and I bet you
do too. You wanna see results
because that is what
anything that is worth doing
requires a commitment.
There has to be a commitment on your
side to say, you know what? I know
I have something
special,
something important, something valuable to give to the
world.
Right?
I have something to share with the world.
Guess what, guys? Guess what that thing is?
That is part of your legacy.
That is part of your legacy.
You have that story. You having that story,
that message, and holding it within
and keeping it, like, you know, like keeping
it a secret and hiding it from the
world is not doing you any justice,
and it doesn't do justice to your story
or to your message. And I'm talking about
whether it is
the experiences that you've been through, whether it's
the expertise that you have, whether it's the
lessons that you've learned, whether it's the product
of your imagination,
all of that
is worth something to other people.
So there are certain people I'm gonna talk
about nonfiction specifically for a minute here. Okay?
There are certain people that I strongly believe
should be writing a book, and if they
don't write a book, then they have not
fulfilled the calling on their life. Oh, yes.
That's what I am gonna say right now.
I'm a own that.
Certain people,
they have a duty to write a book.
They have a duty, a responsibility
to write a book, because what they are
doing is so important.
They cannot afford
not to document
it.
And I'm gonna just tell you something, guys.
This is my own personal thing.
Many of us who are okay. Let me
say, many of us who are, you know,
doing work in our communities,
who are coaching people,
who are serving people, who are building institutions,
who are running institutions,
right, running brands,
building brands,
working on campaigns,
activists,
all sorts of people. Right?
The current climate and the current trend has
got us
fixated
on creating content for social media.
Give me a yes in the chat if
y'all know what I'm talking about.
We're fixated
on building content, creating content for social media.
Give me a yes if you know what
I mean. Adija says yes. Fadiba says yes.
Rashida says yes. Okay.
So that means that we're writing posts.
We're writing captions.
We're taking photos. Now they've got us doing
reels.
Before it was stories, then we oh, they've
got us doing TikToks. They've got us doing
Snapchat. They've got us doing YouTube videos, right,
which is all cool.
But I wanna warn you about something.
Yeah?
All these social media platforms
are transient.
K?
I'm gonna say that again.
All these social media platforms that we are
running after, the likes and running after the
shares and running after the followers,
they are transient. That's the first thing. And
secondly,
they do not belong to us.
K? Y'all hear what I'm saying? They are
transient and they do not belong to us.
So what's happening is
in our effort to kind of keep up
with the content creation treadmill, right, and to
document things, and to share our thoughts, and
share our ideas, We are creating all this
content that is flooding all these apps, which
is basically creating,
you know, what the apps are monetizing. Right?
We are doing all that work, But
because
everyone is doing the same
thing, we're not only competing with each other,
but our work has a very short shelf
life.
You may write a fire caption.
Right? And it gets shown to whatever percentage
of your followers, but then in a couple
of days' time, if you continue to create
content, what happens to your feed?
It goes further and further down your feed.
It stops being shown to people,
and that's it. Of course, if it goes
viral, which is what everybody's supposed to be
chasing, right, then, yeah, you get some you
get a bit of a boost, you get
a bit of a boom. But my point
is this, in 5 years' time, 10 years'
time, no one is going to be going
through your Facebook feed to read those amazing
captions that you wrote.
No one is going to go down your
Instagram feed
to try to read all those amazing captions
that you wrote.
So
post on socials. Post
on socials
to create awareness,
to get people into your funnel,
you know, to to to to do whatever
it is that you wanna do, but be
aware of this, and this is my final
message.
The true legacy
is not in creating content for social media.
It is in documenting
it in a in in a form
that will have longevity.
That could be a documentary, for example,
documentary series,
or
to the point of this session,
writing your book.
K? Because all this time that you're spending
creating content for social media, it's great, but
it's not part of your legacy, guys. That's
what I'm trying to say.
It's not going to last beyond you. It
is going to get buried
buried
under the rubble, under the sand of everything
else that gets piled on top of it.
Give me a yes in the chat if
that makes sense.
Give me a boom in the chat
if you hear what I'm saying.
So there are certain people
that their responsibility
right now
is to write a book. It's not to
post on socials.
If you can post on socials
and then write a book or you can
post on socials and then collate that and
put it into a book, that's the best.
Yeah? But don't get fooled, guys. Don't get
fooled into thinking
all this stuff I'm doing on socials is
building up to something. It's not. Because look
at look at the way things have moved
from Myspace
some of you are old enough to know
about Myspace.
Myspace was the lick back in the day.
Right? It was the place to be. It's
like Buna Mohammed was telling us that he
was the he was the he was the
big guy on Myspace. Right?
Who knows about Myspace anymore? No one. Nobody
who are there again. It's done. Right?
Look at even Facebook.
Millennials don't touch Facebook with a bargepole.
Right? Even Twitter. Twitter is one of those
things that it's now it's really been it
was at one point the rage. Now it's
just certain industries, certain groups of people who
stay there.
Instagram,
obviously, is fighting for its life, but TikTok
is on the up, and it's trying to
take over. So my point is imagine that
person who spent hours and hours creating content
for Facebook, and I know that we have
because when I we were on Facebook,
people took time
to write really
thoughtful,
well written captions,
post.
Give me a yes if you remember that.
After people got over the thing of, you
know, just saying like, oh, dinner out with
boo, Oh, kids driving me crazy today. There
were some people, and I remember them, there
were some people who really took a lot
of time
and made, you know, a lot of effort
to write
really good stuff for their Facebook.
Where is it now?
Where is it now?
It's down someone's feed somewhere. I even I
could not scroll down my own feed
to find
those those amazing pieces of writing that I
did. Right? So what I'm saying is
some people still do, but like I said,
some people
Facebook is their thing.
But my point is this, they will all
be
replaced.
So
who should be writing these books?
Every single one of us? Nah. Probably not.
You know? Some of us, I think we
all have something to say. We all have
a message, we all have a story, but
not everyone has a message or a story
that can really
pad and flesh out a whole book. Right?
So this is what I say.
If you are a person who
currently
serves and helps people
right?
So you're a coach. You're a trainer.
You know, you you are a therapist. You're
a mentor.
Okay? You are somebody who currently
helps people.
You should have a book.
If you have a system
that you've developed, that you use either with
your clients or within your own company or
in your school with your students, whatever it
is, you should document that in a book.
If you are an organization
that is helping people,
that is having an impact,
that, you know, that is is really making
a change in the world,
you guys should have a book
to document what you have been doing. Right?
If you are somebody who
has been through a life trial
and has come out the other side with
real wisdom,
real
tools, real skills,
you should probably have a book.
Because guess what? There are people out there
who are where you were.
Right?
If you've been through and experienced
if you've been through an experience
that other people have been through and you've
made it through the other side, You should
write a book, and I'll give you an
example of this.
So Hema Mansour Khan,
she,
she went through the university system
and experienced what she experienced in the university
system. And then her and 2 other ladies,
our 2 other women,
they decided to document
their experience of going through, I think it
was Cambridge,
as black and brown girls,
what happened with them, what their experience was,
and what they learned
along the way, they decided to write a
book. Why? For other black and brown girls
who are going to come behind them and
go through Cambridge, and that became the brown
I think it's the the fly girl's guide
to Cambridge. I think it's what it's called.
Right? But that's an example. So hey, maman
Zorkan is young.
She's not finished her journey. One of our
sisters says, what if your story is unfinished,
if you're still in it? It's fine because
what Suheima did with hers is that she
took one portion of her life, which was
this university journey,
and she's done something with it.
So whatever she went through, the good and
the bad of it, it's now no longer
just her own lived experience. It's actually a
teaching tool for other people.
You guys seeing what I'm saying here? Give
me a yes if you get where I'm
going with this. Look at From My Sister's
Lips. Many of you are familiar with my
book From My Sister's Lips.
My story isn't finished. From My Sister's Lips
literally tells the story of, like, 5 years
of my life.
Okay? And, like, 5 years of the life
of the women that I interviewed.
I've changed so much since then. They're they've
changed so much. Our lives have moved on
since then, but that is still valid,
and it's still helpful to people. And it's
still a book that people read and are
inspired by and benefit from. And at the
end of the day, I'm no I'm I'm
no one special.
Right? I don't have an amazing flair for
writing.
I don't have any more gifts than any
one of you except
that Allah gave me the opportunity to tell
the story, and I took it.
You can do that too.
If you're somebody who is in a space
where you know a lot of people who
are wise or experienced in particular things, whether
it's marriage, whether it's setting up a business,
whether it's parenting?
Why not go to those people, interview them,
and collate their words and their stories and
make a book and help people.
Because this is what I'm saying guys is
that when people commit and they really they
sit down and they read a book, that
book has the potential to change lives.
I'm sure if I asked you now,
name a book aside from the Quran,
Name a book that you read that fundamentally
changed something about you.
You read that book, and afterwards, you were
never the same. Can you think of a
book like that? It can be fiction or
nonfiction. Could be a children's book. I don't
mind.
But just think of a book that has
changed you.
You read that book, and after that, it
wasn't the same. The Giver.
Munira says The Giver.
Okay?
The Giver is an amazing book, by the
way. Oh my goodness. You know? I can
say 1984
was that kind of book for me. The
Miseducation of the * is another one.
The the autobiography of Malcolm X was definitely
one for me. Right? And and and Lisa
Nichols,
no matter what, Rashida says Malcolm x.
Enjoy your life, dress code says. Moneera says
Malcolm x.
Now look at this. This is amazing
because there's such a variety of books that
people are talking about. From my sister's lips,
this is
From my sister's lips is a memoir.
Malcolm x was a biography.
The Giver is a children's fiction story. Enjoy
Your Life is an Islamic self it's self
help book. But the point is this,
all of us who have read,
we've all been in a space where we've
read a book and that book just spoke
to us. Now I wanna ask you before
I finish up here, I want to ask
you.
Imagine being
the person
who owned their story,
who gave themselves permission to share that story,
and who committed
to writing that book and putting it out
into the world. Imagine being that person
and having people get back to you as
all of these people have Someone says, who
moved my cheese?
All of these people have had people say,
that book fundamentally changed me. That book changed
my life. That book showed me the way.
I am who I am because of that
book. This book taught me that. This book
gave me this. This book gave me that.
Imagine being the person who wrote that book
in the first place.
If those people had not done what I'm
telling you to do,
owned their story, yeah, and and acknowledge that
what they have to say has value.
2nd, gave themselves permission,
yeah, and actually began the process.
And 3rd, committed to actually writing the book,
we wouldn't have these books today.
That's the truth. We wouldn't have these books
today. And so now when we're looking at
it from an I just wanted to change
the lens and go from an Islamic lens.
Imagine that you are that person who writes
a book that helps people, that suits people,
that comforts them, that inspires them, that teaches
them, that guides them, that gives them tools
that they didn't have before and they can
then change their life. Imagine that as sadaqa
jariyah for you.
This is the reality,
guys. This is the reality that I'm talking
about right here. People think writing a book
is some cute thing that you can do,
and, yeah, if you can do it, it's
great. And if not, well, it doesn't matter.
This is legacy, guys.
This is legacy.
And I know every single one of you
has it in you. Every single one of
you has something of value,
and all that's missing is you recognizing it
and taking the steps that you need to
take.
So I just came here to tell you
that.
I just came here to light a fire.
I just came here to get you thinking.
And if you know that you want to
write a book and you wanna make that,
this is the time that, yes, I'm committing
to this. I I I I hear sister
Naima. I hear what she's saying, and I
agree.
That's me. That's me. I am that person.
I am that person with a story to
tell. I am that person with some a
message to share. I am that person
who should be leaving a legacy right now.
Don't know what to do.
Just hit me up.
Just get in touch.
Go into the DMs.
Send me a private message.
Talk to me. Tell me about your story,
and let's see if I can help
you. I am so grateful to be able
to work with
amazing people, whether they're writing memoirs, autobiographies,
self help books, you know, all sorts. And
it's it's such a blessing for my team
and I to help you guys to plan
your story, to actually, you know, go through
the process of of planning it and writing
and editing and putting out into the world.
And, you know, I hope inshallah I get
a little bit of that barakah as well.
Get a little bit of that barakah. Ola
says he's writing a second book. Yes.
Amazing.
So, guys, you know, I
we feel just so blessed to be able
to work with the with the the people
that we do. And when those women and
men,
when they agree and they decide that they
want to invest in themselves and invest in
their message,
that's when things happen.
When we say investment,
guys, it's an investment of time.
Yes. It's true. It does take some time.
Not as much as you think, but it
does. A children's books, hit me up as
well. But an investment of time,
an investment of effort, and an investment of
resources,
that's what it takes really to make this
happen. And if you want to do that,
then let's talk. Sis says, what if your
story is so heavy it doesn't fit in
one pot? That's when it really helps to
talk to someone like me, who's a coach,
and I can we can decide together
what is it that you really want to
say. You know?
What is it that you really want to
say? Is it something we can narrow down
to one book? Is it something that we
need to split up? I had a client,
Masha'Allah Aisha, who came to me initially, and
she said she had 3 different story ideas,
3 different book ideas, and she thought all
these 3 were 3 different book ideas. Right?
And after we had our breakthrough call and
we really sat down and we talked it
through, we realized actually
it was all one book. It was a
continuum. And in the end,
she ended up writing the whole book, and
I think she took
3 weeks or something. I mean, it was
she was writing a lot. But it took
her about 3 to 6 weeks to write
this book.
It's now published, and it's called, you know,
Rise Irrespective.
So
people can do it.
Ordinary people
can tap into
the extraordinary
story that they have within. And guess what?
The women I work with and the men
I work with, they are not professional writers.
I want you to know that. They are
not professional writers.
These are people who are not,
skilled per se. They are not, you know,
educated in writing. They're not qualified writers.
They just
have
the will
and the desire and the passion to tell
their story.
Okay? The writing side of things when you're
writing nonfiction, guys, I just wanna let you
know this. When you're writing nonfiction,
writing skill or creativity
is not the benchmark.
Okay? We can help you with that, so
don't worry about that. Fiction is something else.
Okay? And that's why I'm kind of shifting
the conversation to nonfiction.
But, you know and and again, Sajid Doh
says, what if writing isn't your strength? I
would challenge you on that. I would challenge
you on that. As your coach, I would
challenge you on that, and I would say,
what if you saying, what if writing isn't
your strength is a limiting belief?
Because that happens too. Right? Give me a
yes in the chat if you've ever said
to yourself, oh, I'm not good at writing.
I'm not a writer.
You know, writing isn't my strength. I didn't
do well with English at school. How many
of us have said that or have heard
other people saying that? Well, I'm here to
tell you that that is not the criteria
that you should use to say whether you're
going to write your book or not.
Right?
If you're not as good as you thought
you was, you just need more practice. And
if you're a great talker, that means that
you will write beautifully as long as you
have the right tools.
Okay? So everything is figureoutable, guys, except for
the first piece.
The first piece is owning your story, owning
the value of what you have to say,
and then the second piece is giving yourself
permission.
3rd piece is taking action, is getting committed.
So if you've got 1, 2, and 3,
3 is the one that's missing,
just send me a DM, send me a
PM. Let's get you moving. Okay? Let's get
you moving. I wanna see
more Muslims writing. I want to see more
black people writing, brown people writing, more people
who are not represented.
Okay? Who are not being represented out there.
We wanna see more of those voices out
there.
Sis says, do I help kids in learning
to write stories? I do have programs sometimes,
but at the moment, I don't have anything.
So, you have to wait until the holidays,
I think, the December holidays.
But, guys, listen. I don't wanna say anything
more because I think I've given you more
than enough food for thought. Right?
So hop into the DMs,
slide into the PMs.
If you know that you have a story
to tell, if you've done what I said,
you've owned your story and you're ready to
give yourself permission,
and you want to take action, then get
in touch with me, and let's get you
moving.
Okay? Writing books is not for special people.
Okay? It's not for special people.
It's for committed people.
Okay?
Especially completing books,
is not for special people,
it's for committed people.
And if you are a person who has
that passion and that belief that, yes,
the world needs what I have to say.
And you know what? That's already huge.
Right? That's already huge because a lot of
us, we come from families, communities,
schools where they really tell you that, you
know, you ain't you ain't nothing. Like, you
ain't
you
you're not all that.
And, of course, we're always comparing ourselves to
other people, so we're looking at those other
people and we're saying, oh, I'm not like
so and so. I'm not as good as
so and so. I'm not as clever as
so and so. My story is not as
special as that one. It's not as amazing
as so and so. We're doing all of
that. So remember
that there's the mindset piece first, and that's
why I said the first thing is to
own your story. Okay?
Own your story.
Give yourself permission. And if you're ready to
take action, then contact me, and let's get
you moving.
As always, I am your sister, Naeema b
Robert, and it's been an absolute pleasure sharing
this space with you guys.
So those of you who are ready to
take action,
get into a message to me and let's
start talking. Tell me about what it is
that you want to write. So it says
clap clap. Thank you.
Tell me what you wanna write about. Tell
me why it's going, and let me see
if I can help you if it's a
fit for us to work together.
Okay, guys. I'm gonna close it off there.
The recording will be available. This will be
available,
on the Instagram, so you can watch it
again and you could take notes and you
can, you know, share it with whoever you
know needs to hear this message, needs to
see this. And
I will see you, those of you who
are ready to take action and make 2021
the year that you publish your book,
I'll see you on the other side.